


Rainbow Hands

by Rina_san28



Series: Pride Month 2018 [22]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Domestic Fluff, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Painting, aka no suffering, pride 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 05:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15042176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rina_san28/pseuds/Rina_san28
Summary: Bucky likes to watch Steve work. He especially likes the colors he turns.Written for Pride Month 2018 Day 24: Color





	Rainbow Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't written them yet, but I really wanted to, so here you go!

Steve’s hands were always a rainbow.

 

Ever since they were kids, running around Brooklyn and wreaking havoc wherever they could, Bucky had never once seen Steve’s hands completely free of color. At first, it was just charcoal from his drawing sticks, the cheap ones with the shitty wrapping. As they got older and bolder, the gray of the charcoal mixed with the mottled blues and purples and greens of healing bruises and the dark red of scrapes and scabs after back alley fights with bullies and brutes.

 

That had changed, after. After Bucky left for the War. After Steve showed up, all big and brawny and so damned hopeful that it made him want to cry and ship him back home so he’d be _safe_ , because he was too good for this, too good for all of it.

 

And then he died. Bucky had died and left Steve alone, and then Steve had died, too. Except they didn’t. They had lived, and out-lived, and now everything was different and strange and _wrong_ …

 

But Steve’s hands were still colorful.

 

Bucky leaned back against their kitchen counter, coffee in hand, and watched his husband paint. They hadn’t been able to afford paints, back when they were just two boys in a drafty Brooklyn tenement, but now Steve was a national – _international_ – hero and apparently that had a pretty great income, enough to afford a nice cottage with a great view, good food, clothes that fit and didn’t wear at the knees in a day, and nearly anything else a person could ever want.

 

Their cottage was a pretty little thing on a lake, yellow with white trim and windows all around. Today, Steve had set up his easel on the screened-in front porch. There was a storm due in that afternoon, but the clouds were already rolling in from the north, their shadows playing with the color of the water as the wind turned the waves from calm swells to choppy whitecaps. There was a monument in the distance, hazy but there, and even in the early stages of the painting Bucky could pick out its distinct shape.

 

Steve tended to stick out his tongue whenever he painted the water. It was endearing, and while Bucky must’ve taken a thousand photos of it, he didn’t think he’d ever stop. He checked his phone, quirking his lips slightly at the picture of Steve, red paint streaked across his nose with his tongue sticking out, that Clint had helpfully set as his lockscreen.

 

_Don’t listen to that shit Tasha says about keeping secrets safe or whatever. My kids are on mine. Whatever’s there should make you grin, so whenever you get a telemarketer, you can at least get some satisfaction from picking the thing up._

 

He looked back up at the current Steve, the real Steve, and felt a full grin steal across his face as he saw the deep purple paint staining the man’s mussed blond hair, and…yep, sure enough, coating his right hand. Bucky hid the smile in his coffee as he sidled out to the porch.

 

“What’d you do, take a swim in it?” he teased, leaning against the doorframe.

 

Steve startled. “What?”

 

“Sweetheart, you’ve got purple in your hair,” Bucky said. “I think this is a new record for fastest mess made while painting.”

 

“Are you serious?” Steve groaned, running his hand through his hair again in a futile attempt to remove the offending color.

 

“It’s a good look,” Bucky said. “You should keep it.”

 

“Ha-ha,” Steve said, shooting him a deadpan look. “Is that coffee?”

 

“You want some?” Bucky raised his mug, a black one with _I’m a ray of fucking sunshine_ printed on it.

 

Steve made grabby hands. “Gimme.”

 

“Only ‘cause you asked so nice.” He handed it over and Steve took a large gulp, then made a face.

 

“God, did you put _anything_ in this?” Steve asked in disgust.

 

“Nope!” Bucky said cheerfully. “You want somethin’ that tastes nice, order your Sunbecks.”

 

“Starbucks,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “Take your dirt grinds back, I’ll get my own in a sec.”

 

“Nah, I’ll get you some. You keep makin’ pretty shit.” Bucky took his mug and wandered back into the kitchen, leaving the door open. Steve had opened the windows before he started working, so the cool breeze and sound of crashing waves filtered through into the cottage. It was calming, he thought as he pulled down Steve’s favorite mug, a purple and white one that said _Best Fucking Grandma Ever_ in cursive script that had been a gift from Sam for his last birthday. “You want milk in it?”

 

“Just a bit!” Steve called back, already refocused on the painting. “And a spot of sugar!”

 

“Gotcha.” Bucky mixed in the requested items and returned to the porch, setting the second mug down on the little wicker side-table, careful not to mess with his husband’s meticulously organized brushes. He perched on the edge of the sofa behind Steve’s stool and watched him work for a while in silence.

 

The sky and water were already there, as well as the islands which lined the horizon. Steve added the long pier, with thin lines for light posts and a tiny flag at the top of the flagpole. Then, looking up every so often, he added in the threatening shapes of the clouds in the same purple that decorated his hands, hair, and coffee mug, then the white foam that topped the ever-growing waves. By the time he’d finished, raindrops had begun to pelt the sidewalk in front of the cottage and leak through the window screens.

 

“The rain came early,” Steve remarked, sitting back and gathering up his brushes.

 

“Usually does,” Bucky said. “Lake never does quite what you want it to.” He stood and began cranking the windows shut. Lightning flashed in the distance, and thunder followed a few heartbeats after. “Looks like a great day to stay inside.”

 

Steve hummed in agreement. “Nat said they put _Lord of the Rings_ on Netflix.”

 

“I think that sounds like a plan,” Bucky said, leaning over and stealing a quick kiss. “Which one?”

 

“Might as well start with the first one,” Steve said. “Should we order takeout?”

 

“I dunno. Maybe.”

 

“Helpful.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Make me.”

 

“I don’t take orders from paint-covered idiots.”

 

Steve shot him a look, picked up a brush, and painted a strip of white down the bridge of Bucky’s nose. “Ha.”

 

“Dork,” Bucky said, and grinned as Steve leaned in again to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> The place they're in is actually based on where I went on vacation last week. It's a tiny little town on Lake Erie called Lakeside Chautauqua. Pretty and peaceful with historical architecture. The monument across the lake is Perry's Monument, erected to commemorate the Battle of Lake Erie and honor Commadore Oliver Hazard Perry (yes, that was his real name). I love that place with all of my heart. It's the one place where I feel happy and at peace. If anyone deserves that peace, it's Steve and Bucky. 
> 
> Both of those mugs are real, by the way! Bucky's is from Etsy and Steve's is from Society6! 
> 
> I'm rina-san28 on Tumblr! Come say hi!


End file.
